In her on-going effort to win over millennial voters, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton appeared on the Funny Or Die series Between Two Ferns with actor and comedian Zach Galifianakis.
While the five-minute video posted Thursday is intended to highlight Clinton’s campaign for the White House, the candidate actually said very little. Galifianakis, meanwhile, fired off questions that managed to deprecate both Clinton and her opponent Donald Trump, and most of them served no purpose other than injecting some (much needed) comedy into the election.
For instance, he said:
“Any regrets over losing the Scott Baio vote?”
“I’d love to meet the person who makes your pantsuits…because for Halloween I wanted to go as a librarian from outer space.”
“When you went to Donald Trump’s wedding, did he write his own vows and did Michelle Obama write Melania’s?”
“What happens if you become pregnant? Are we going to be stuck with Tim Kaine for nine months? How does this work?”
And this final zinger:
“Well this has been a lot of fun, Mrs. Clinton, we should stay in touch. What’s the best way to reach you? Email?”
Clinton played along with Galifianakis, delivering an air of exasperation and a well-practiced half smile, half glare.
In one of his more serious questions, Galifianakis asked Clinton what it would be like to become the first “girl president.”
Answer: “Being president would be such an extraordinary honor and responsibility, but being the first woman elected president and what that would mean for our country and—particularly—what that would mean for not just little girls, little boys too, that’s pretty special.”
And he quizzed Clinton on her number one priority as president.
Answer: “Oh Zach, it has to be the economy. We need more good jobs with rising incomes. We have to make the economy work for everybody, not just those at the top.”
Between Two Ferns mocks the types of celebrity interviews popular on late night TV with its public access feel and Galifianakis’ deadpan delivery of rude and crude questions. It usually features Hollywood stars, but it became a kind of political platform when President Obama appeared in an episode in 2014 to promote the Affordable Care Act.
Clinton’s appearance on the show is in line with her on-going push to reach younger voters, whom she’s struggling to win over. Two recent polls found that more than one-third of voters under 30 intend to vote for third party candidates Libertarian Gary Johnson or Green Party member Jill Stein instead of casting a ballot for Clinton or Trump. The Clinton campaign’s wooing of millennials has so far entailed a cameo on the show Broad City, an appearance on Saturday Night Live, and a post on the popular blog Humans of New York. More recently, she’s also enlisted the help of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and First Lady Michelle Obama, who are enormously popular with young liberals.
When Clinton appeared on Broad City, the New York Times‘ said it was an example of “pop-culture politicking in the meme era—one that’s less about humanizing the candidate than imagining her as a kind of stylized artwork, not likable so much as shareable.”
That same analysis could apply to the candidate’s latest schtick.